A pilot managed to wrestle a powerless plane safely to the
ground in a field near Bailey Avenue and U.S. 101.
A pilot managed to wrestle a powerless plane safely to the ground in a field near Bailey Avenue and U.S. 101.
A small plane safely landed in a field near Bailey Avenue and U.S. 101 about 8 p.m. Sunday night, after losing engine power.
Returning from a long weekend in Arizona and Palm Springs with his girlfriend, 61-year-old Don Mackenzie was slowly descending as he approached the Palo Alto Airport, he said Monday afternoon.
“Right over the spot where I landed, the enigne made kind of a sputtering sound,” said Mackenzie, who has been flying for more than 10 years. “Something was broken between the propeller and the engine. We beileve now that it was the crankshaft.”
Mackenzie said once he realized he’d lost engine power he signaled a “Mayday” with air traffic controllers, and began looking for someplace “soft and cheap” to land.
“We are trained for this,” he said. “This is in fact one of thee things you have to demonstrate during a simulation.”
He looked around and found a long field with a lot of space between power poles, he said.
Neither his girlfriend – a former stewardess for Pan Am – or the friend he rented the plane from, have any complaints he said.
“Among our group of pilots, this was a good result,” he said.
Regardless, the incident is under investigation, and the plane – a single engine Cessna T210N – will likely be moved Tuesday to a repair shop in Salinas.
The California Highway Patrol was unavailable for comment Monday.
